COMMUNICATION OF EUROPEAN POPULIST LEADERS ON TWITTER: AGENDA SETTING AND THE “MORE IS LESS” EFFECT Comunicación de los líderes populistas europeos en Twitter: construcción de la agenda y efecto “más es menos” Laura Alonso-Muñoz and Andreu Casero-Ripollés Nota: Este artículo se puede leer en español en: http://www.elprofesionaldelainformacion.com/contenidos/2018/nov/03_esp.pdf * Laura Alonso-Muñoz has a PhD in Communication Science and develops her research as Postdoc- toral Research Staff fellow from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Mineco, Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness) in the Departament de Ciències de la Comunicació (De- partment of Communication Sciences) at the Universitat Jaume I (UJI) of Castelló (Spain). She has a degree in Journalism and a Master’s in the New Trends and Processes of Innovation in Communi- cation from UJI. She also is graduated in Political Science and Administration from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) of Barcelona. Her research is framed in the transformation of political com- munication and journalism in social media. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8894-1064 [email protected] Andreu Casero-Ripollés is a journalism professor and dean of the Facultat de Ciències Humanes i Socials (Faculty of Human and Social Sciences) of the Universitat Jaume I (UJI), Castelló (Spain). He was previously director of the Departament de Ciències de la Comunicació (Department of Commu- nication Sciences) and director of the Journalism Degree course. He has a degree and a PhD from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is a member of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans (Institute for Catalan Studies) and has been a visiting researcher at the universities of Columbia (United States) and Westminster (United Kingdom) among others. He works on the transformations of digital journa- lism and political communication, and has published in journals such asInformation, communication & society; International journal of press/politics; Journalism; American behavioural scientist; Interna- tional journal of communication; and Journalism practice, among others. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6986-4163 [email protected] Universitat Jaume I, Facultat de Ciències Humanes i Socials, Departament de Ciències de la Comunicació Av. Vicent Sos Baynat, s/n. 12071 Castelló de la Plana, Spain Abstract The populist phenomenon has acquired great relevance during the last decade. The emergence of new populist actors and the consolidation of the use of social media such asTwitter are transforming the field of political communication. The objec- tive of this paper is to know the agenda set by the leaders of the main European populist political parties Twitteron , as well as the strategy they use and the user interaction achieved. The sample consists of the 2,310 tweets published by the leaders of Podemos, the 5 Stelle Movement, France’s National Front and UKIP during three random time periods. The results show a low degree of thematic fragmentation, the launch of proposals instead of attracting voters, and the existence of a strong negative correlation between the number of published tweets and user interest. Keywords Political communication; Populism; Social media; Twitter; Agenda-setting; Leadership. Resumen El fenómeno populista ha adquirido una gran relevancia durante la última década. El surgimiento de nuevos actores popu- listas junto con la consolidación del uso de redes sociales como Twitter están transformando el campo de la comunicación política. El objetivo de este artículo es conocer la agenda planteada en Twitter por los líderes de los principales partidos Manuscript received on 10-05-2018 Approved on 03-10-2018 El profesional de la información, 2018, noviembre-diciembre, v. 27, n. 6. eISSN: 1699-2407 1193 Laura Alonso-Muñoz and Andreu Casero-Ripollés políticos populistas europeos, así como la estrategia que emplean y la respuesta obtenida por parte de los usuarios. La muestra está integrada por los 2.310 tweets publicados por los líderes de Podemos, el Movimento 5 Stelle, el Frente Nacional y el UKIP durante tres periodos temporales aleatorios. Los resultados plantean un bajo grado de fragmentación temática, el lanzamiento de propuestas frente a la captación de votantes y la existencia de una fuerte correlación negativa entre el número de tweets publicados y el interés de los usuarios. Palabras clave Comunicación política; Populismo; Medios sociales; Twitter; Agenda-setting; Liderazgo. Alonso-Muñoz, Laura; Casero-Ripollés, Andreu (2018). “Communication of European populist leaders onTwitter : Agen- da setting and the ‘more is less’ effect”. El profesional de la información, v. 27, n. 6, pp. 1193-1202. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2018.nov.03 1. Introduction conventional media that are often hostile to them (Groshek; Engelbert, 2013), allowing their messages to reach citizens Populist parties and leaders are gaining an increasingly pro- directly (Bennet; Manheim, 2006; Vaccari; Valeriani, 2015). minent role in Western democracies. In the words of Mud- Populist politicians capitalise the power and influence of so- de (2004, p. 1) we are witnesses of a “populist zeitgeist”, the cial media in the development of public opinion by dissemi- emergence of a new era in which populist political parties nating populist ideas, such as attack on the elites or defence have been introduced in numerous European parliaments. of the people (Engesser et al., 2017). Gerbaudo (2014) calls Freedom Party of Austria FPÖ Party for Freedom PVV The ( ), ( ) this phenomenon Populism 2.0. in the Netherlands or the Alternative for Germany (AfD) achieved the support of more than 20% of the electorate Twitter offers great advantages to populist political actors. in the last elections. Others, such as Law and Justice (PiS) in Its immediate, free-of-charge, easy to use, interactive capa- Poland or the Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Union in Hungary, even city and virality make Twitter an essential tool for the com- govern in their respective countries. Recently, in the Italian munication strategy of this type of actor, who often have March 2018 elections, Movimento 5 Stelle obtained 32.66% more limited budgets than conventional parties (Strand- of the votes, making it the most voted party. berg, 2008). Precisely, it is the last two characteristics that attract the most the attention of the populists. On the one This increase in support for left-wing and right-wing popu- hand, the fact that Twitter offers an unmediated communi- list political actors (Rooduijn, 2015) is due, amongst other cation allows them to maintain direct contact with the peo- factors, to the increased use of social media (Mudde, 2016). ple, the main recipients of their messages, and elude their Twitter Facebook Platforms such as or allow them to skip the enemies, the elites, who control the conventional media formalities from conventional media and share their mes- (Van-Kessel; Castelein, 2016). sages much more directly with their audience (Engesser; Fawzi; Larsson, 2017). This way, they can set an alternative On the other hand, the viralising capacity of Twitter allows agenda to that of conventional media (Enli; Skogerbø, 2013; its messages to reach a greater number of people quickly Galán-García, 2017) and launch functions ranging from in- and easily (Bartlett, 2014; Elmer, 2013) and even to be able formative self-mediation (Cammaerts, 2012) to interaction to access the media agenda more easily (Casero-Ripollés; with the public (Alonso-Muñoz; Marcos-García; Casero-Ri- Feenstra; Tormey, 2016). This aspect is very useful for po- pollés, 2016), aspects that redefine the role played by po- pulist political actors given the difficulty they have in disse- pulist political actors in political communication and their minating and introducing their own issues and approaches relations with the public and journalists (Jungherr, 2014). in society. In addition, the fact that social media encourage homophily (Colleoni; Rozza; Arvidsson, 2014) allows their Research on the evolution of populism on the Internet and messages to have a better and greater reception by their fo- social media at a comparative level is still scarce, and exis- llowers, who are more receptive to listening and retransmit- ting research focuses on the analysis of electoral periods ting them, generating an echo chamber dynamic (Jamieson; et al. (Van-Kessel; Castelein, 2016; Engesser , 2017; Ernst; Cappella, 2008; Jacobs; Spierings, 2016). Engesser; Esser, 2017). Thus, the objective of this article is to analyse how Twitter is used by the leaders of four Euro- Research such as that of Enli (2017) has demonstrated that pean populist European parties outside electoral periods to social media has a great impact on the definition of the pu- analyse their usual communications strategy. blic agenda, especially for those actors that are not part of the elite. The case of Podemos is paradigmatic in this sense. 1.1. Populism in the digital environment Through the activation of the two-way street mediatization, the party managed to incorporate its proposals into conven- Communication plays a fundamental role in the development tional media (Casero-Ripollés; Feenstra; Tormey, 2016). and growth of populism (Jagers; Walgrave, 2007; Block; Negrine, 2017). While the traditional media context makes Previous bibliography on the agenda posed by political it difficult to get into the news (Shoemaker; Vos, 2009), the actors on Twitter has focused on electoral campaigns and digital environment allows the circumvention of the filter of highlighted